Don't Forget to Call Me When You're Stealing Stuff

After dinner, Coulson was hunched over a small desk, biting the tip of a pencil and scratching his head as he hurriedly wrote Annie's homework for her. By now, Annie had already bathed and gone to bed—she wanted to sleep early tonight, so she'd handed the great task of finishing her homework to Uncle Coulson, who'd lost a bet. Surely this senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent wouldn't let her down.

Actually, Annie's homework wasn't hard for Coulson. The tricky part was that he had to write it as if he were Annie! That meant referencing her past assignments while mimicking her handwriting—a real hassle. He had to write it once, then slowly copy it again in her script. All in all, it was time-consuming.

Mimicking handwriting was basic training for an agent. Even if Coulson's technique was rough, copying her writing to fool that stuffy old teacher, Ms. Mayne, was no problem at all!

Sure, doing Annie's homework felt a bit off, not great. But it wasn't the first time, right? As they say, first time's awkward, second time's a charm. Either way, Coulson didn't want Annie to skip homework and get him called to school by Ms. Mayne for a third time. That experience was just too awful!

Besides, Coulson was an agent. An agent's basic principle was to do their best to complete the mission! Right now, his mission was to write Annie's homework. What? You're saying Coulson broke a moral rule? That it's bad? Hah, you're talking principles with an agent? Principles—what's that? Can you eat it?

Just as Coulson was buried in his work, determined to finish the mission Annie had assigned, Melinda walked over to his desk with a serious face. She tapped the surface impatiently, signaling him to stop.

"Melinda? Something up?" Coulson asked, annoyed.

Couldn't she see he was busy? Why did she have to interrupt him now? She'd broken his train of thought. Where was he? Right! Grammar and sentence structure, yeah!

"Enough, stop writing! There's a new mission. Headquarters called. They've found Loki—he's in Germany. The Director ordered us to leave immediately, no delays!" Melinda said as she walked to the wall, flipped open a large oil painting, revealing a small armory, and started picking out weapons and ammo.

"Finally found him? Great!" Hearing about Loki, Coulson dropped the pen and rushed over to check the gear with Melinda. "By the way, have the other Avengers been notified?"

Taking on the trickster god Loki and his stolen minions wasn't something regular agents could handle. Without the Avengers, any number of agents would just be feeding kills—a pentakill wasn't a joke! So Coulson had to ask clearly. He didn't want to be the one feeding and surrendering early.

"Captain and Natasha have already left headquarters. Iron Man Tony's reportedly on his way. We're the only ones left!" Melinda clicked two pistols into holsters at her lower back and grabbed a few extra magazines.

"Oh, good! Wait, what about Thor and the Hulk?" Coulson felt something was off. Weren't two Avengers missing? Or had Melinda just forgotten to mention them?

"We can't reach Thor for now, but agents are looking for his girlfriend, Jane Foster. Find her, and we'll find Thor!" Melinda was secretly annoyed at Thor. Seriously, would it kill him to carry a phone? Did all Asgardians communicate by shouting?

"As for the Hulk? Forget it. We can't count on him for now."

Right. Coulson thought it over and agreed the Hulk was unreliable. S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't even tracked him down yet! That guy was a master escape artist and a pro at hide-and-seek—otherwise, he wouldn't have given the military such a headache for so long.

By now, he was probably hiding in some unmonitored slum or a cave somewhere. He was always unorganized, undisciplined, and refused to follow orders. Even if they found him, there'd be no time to get him to Germany.

"Alright, enough talk. Let's go. Our ride's here." Melinda heard the engine of a plane outside. It seemed the New York branch had sent a Quinjet to pick them up.

"Hold on, something's still off. What about Annie? Aren't we calling her?" Seeing Melinda pulling him to leave, Coulson was confused. There was a super ace of the Avengers upstairs—he didn't believe Melinda had forgotten.

"But Annie's already asleep! It's not really appropriate to wake her now. Besides, aren't Captain and Tony there? They should handle Loki fine, right?" Melinda was reluctant to wake Annie. She'd checked just before the mission—the little girl was fast asleep. Waking her now felt wrong.

"Makes sense. Alright, let's go then!" Coulson thought it over and decided not to wake her. But after a few steps, he stopped. "No, I still think waking Annie would be safer."

With that, Coulson turned and headed upstairs. In his view, the Captain was strong, but how strong? He hadn't seen it firsthand and didn't want to jump to conclusions—probably limited?

And Iron Man Tony? That playboy might not even show up in time! S.H.I.E.L.D. was up against Loki, the so-called trickster god. Anyone with "god" in their title wasn't easy to deal with.

So Coulson felt uneasy without Annie. To him, Annie and her bear were worth a reinforced company of Hulks. Why wouldn't you bring such a powerful teammate? Even if they messed up, Annie could carry the whole team to victory. How awesome was that?

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Half-asleep, Annie vaguely heard knocking. Thinking it was a dream, she didn't open her eyes, mumbled something unintelligible, pulled the covers over her head, and hugged her bear back to sleep.

She was too tired tonight—that's why she'd gone to bed so early. She must have misheard. Hallucination. No knocking at all. She didn't believe Uncle Coulson would knock on her door and wake her up at this hour! That was a fake, an impostor! So she ignored it.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

"Annie? Are you awake?" After a pause, Coulson knocked again and asked softly, but there was no response from the room. The little girl was definitely dead asleep.

"My God! Forget it, Coulson! Let's go. Time's running out!" Melinda called from downstairs. She still didn't recommend waking Annie. Weren't the Captain and Iron Man enough? She thought so.

"Sigh! Fine. That's how it is." Since he couldn't wake Annie, Coulson gave up on his insistence. What else could he do? Break the door down? That bear Tibbers would tear him apart!

Unable to wake Annie and with Melinda urging him from below, Coulson nodded and turned to head downstairs. Though he still felt uneasy, this was the only option. At most, he'd hurry Tony along on the plane.

Annie, mistress! Lady Annie! My little ancestor! Are you really not going? Is that a good idea?

Tibbers had heard the whole conversation downstairs from the start, so he had to remind her through their mental link!

...Shut up, Tibbers...

Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you: I heard everything. They found that guy Loki, the so-called trickster god, hanging out in a place called Germany.

Seeing Annie still unresponsive, Tibbers pressed on:

Oh, right! I remember he's got a treasure called the Space Stone, said to open some kind of space gate? Hmm, wonder if it's true. If we snatch it, maybe we could open a gate to the Shadow Isles? This bear really misses home~! Tibbers dragged out the word "home" for emphasis.

Loki, trickster god... steal stuff... steal the Space Stone! Space gate... Home!!!

Hearing that, the drowsy Annie's eyes shot wide open. She kicked off the covers, jumped out of bed, and yanked open the curtains at record speed. Standing on tiptoes, she leaned half her body out the window and shouted sweetly at the two about to board the plane: "Uncle Coulson! Aunt Melinda! Wait for me! I'll just change clothes—three minutes! Oh, no—two minutes! I'll be right down!"